By Dennis Creehan, Head Coach
Alderson-Broaddus University
So how did we teach those deep zone players? There is a great deal of debate among coaches on how this should be done. Many coaches play what is known as quarters coverage. Cover 4 is a great coverage for stopping the run and gives the defense the chance to have as many as nine men in run-stopping positions. However, quarters coverage can put a great deal of pressure on the corners. Many of the reads require the corners to play the wide receivers in an off-man technique with no help. This adds risk and does not minimize risk. When the safeties start to jump underneath routes, you become a cover zero team and we just didn’t want to become a cover zero team. If we did play quarters coverage, we schemed the coverage to allow short routes and not deep ones,
based on the philosophy that the offense would not stay patient or would make a mistake before they could score.
There are also many coaches around the country who like to jump routes with their deep defenders. I recall a staff discussion when I was coaching at the University of California about playing spots as opposed to jumping routes. At the end of the discussion, we decided to jump routes with the deep defenders and spot drop with the underneath defenders. At AB, we’ve done the exact opposite. We would jump routes with the underneath defenders but would play spot coverage with the deep defenders. Why? The reason is the simple concept that pass defense is based on two things – time and distance. The deeper the routes the more time the ball is in the air and the more time our defenders have to ‘break on the ball.’ However, the shorter routes take less time and therefore, we felt we needed to be closer to the receivers so we jumped underneath receivers with zone match principles.
Our deep defenders did not jump routes but rather played true zone principles with the ago old premise of being deeper than the deepest in a specific area. Our deep defenders played on landmarks. Whether you call them landmarks, dividers, or any other name it is part of the field we want our deep defenders to get to and defend when the play develops. We use conventional wisdom when playing these landmarks meaning we want our deep defenders to be deeper than the deepest receiver in their area with eyes on the QB and we don’t get off these landmarks until the QB releases the ball. These are our fastest athletes and, if trained to break on the QB’s release, they should be able to overlap their entire zone of balls thrown deep down the field.
Our underneath defenders are assigned to match the underneath routes and carry them inside out to a depth of 15 yards. If they will drop with this type of depth, then any ball thrown to a receiver will need to be thrown high and the deep defenders should be able to break on those throws. Again, we would allow check downs and short throws rather than long ones inviting the offense to be patient and keep checking the ball down. We mix plenty of man to man coverage to change up how we played checkdowns and to sit tight on the short routes.
In keeping with the concept of time and distance, we also incorporated the location of the snap into the distance part of the equation. As a result, we would change the landmarks based on whether the ball was snapped from the middle of the field or from the hash mark. To define the middle of the field we told our players that if the ball was located between the uprights, then it was considered the middle of the field. But if the ball was snapped from outside the uprights then it was considered on the hash mark. As long as the QB stayed between the tackles the hash mark rules did not change but if the QB moved the pocket outside the tackles, then the hash mark rules would adjust on the run.
The landmarks for deep third zones with the ball snapped from the middle of the field are the top of the numbers for the outside third players and the middle of the goal posts for the post player (Diagrams 1 and 1-A). However, if the ball was snapped from the hash, then the boundary corner would move to the bottom of the numbers and the field corner would move to the alley half way from the hash to the numbers. The post player would move to the upright closest to the snap. This makes the sideline to the wide side of the field an inviting target but, again, to throw the ball that deep and far takes time because of the distance and the defender can overlap that throw because of the time the ball is in the air.
Diagram 1 Diagram 1-A
When playing the deep half, landmarks for our two deep defenders are two yards outside the hash mark when the ball is snapped in the middle of the field. Those landmarks would be equivalent to the old has marks before they were moved inside. They are also the current high school hash marks (Diagrams 2 and 2-A). If we were playing the deep half landmarks when the ball is snapped from the hash mark, then we move our landmarks two yards closer to the hash mark the ball was snapped from. That would put the boundary half player four yards outside his hash mark and the field defender right on the hash mark. Again, this made the sideline to the wide side of the field the longest throw for the QB with the ball in the air for a very long time.
Diagram 2 Diagram 2-A